He was also one of the original mem- |sions of Mr. Thomas Moore, he was bers and promoters of the Garrick induced to purify some of the especial Club. In 1831 he was obliged to aban-favorites of his muse from their grossdon his town house, and to retire to a ness, and to convey through the mesmaller residence at Fulham. On one dium of his exquisite melodies a moral occasion at this place, a friend was which was not intended by the poet." viewing Putney bridge from a little ter- Canning, Tierney, Brougham, Grey, race that overhung the Thames, when and others figured in these melodies, he observed to his host that he had which caused much amusement to both heard it was a good investment, and political parties. When Lord Godeinquired "if such were the case -if rich resigned the premiership suddenly the bridge really answered ?" "I in 1827, Hook threw off a capital piece don't know," said Theodore, "but you of pleasantry in the shape of a police have only to cross it, and you are sure case, wherein Frederick Robinson was to be tolled." charged at Bow Street with quitting his master's service without giving due warning.

66

But although he had moved to the quiet suburb of Fulham, he could not escape from the social vortex. He was But "The Ramsbottom Letters " still in request at the clubs, and at the were the best effusions in Hook's houses of the aristocracy, where his comic vein. Mrs. R.'s description of society was eagerly looked forward to." England and France" is delightful. Every year found him more deeply The old lady left London by way of embarrassed pecuniarily, while he was Westminster Bridge, to explode the slowly killing himself by late nights European continent." Having heard and social dissipation. To the last he travellers lament that they had not put bore up, however, but once as he stood down what they called the memory bilwith his coffee in his hand in a fash-ious of their journeys, she determined ionable drawing-room, he suddenly while on her tower to keep a dairy, so turned towards a large mirror and said, "Ah! I see I look as I am - done up iu purse, in mind, and in body too at last." His old brilliant powers of improvisation were now only a memory. In the daytime he still strove to work at his new novel, "Peregrine Bunce," but it was never completed. Serious disorders of the liver and stomach already had him in their grip. On the 13th of August, 1841, he took finally to his bed, and on the 24th of the same month he expired. He left a wife and five children, who were relieved by a subscription set on foot by four truehearted friends. A sum of nearly £3,000 was subscribed, the king of Hanover alone who was a warm admirer of Hook's talents-subscribing them. On arriving at Dover they went £500. to bed immediately after dinner, as Hook's political songs were very they had to get up early, "to be ready clever, though of course to a great ex- for embrocation on the packet in the tent they have lost their point with the morning." When on board the steam present generation. Having been packet, Mrs. R. was much surprised at frequently put to the blush by hearing the cabin, "where ladies and gentlevery modest young ladies, without a men are put upon shelves like books blush, warbling forth the amatory effu-in a library, and where tall men are

called from containing the cream of
one's information. Before leaving Lon-
don she visited Westminster Hall, and
admired its curious roof, after which,
as everybody knows, its builder was
called William Roofus.
"When we
came to the Green Man at Black-
heath," she continues, we had an
opportunity of noticing the errors of
former travellers, for the heath is
green and the man is black." At
Rochester, the travellers "went to the
Crown Inn, and had a cold collection ;
the charge was absorbent." As they
passed near Chatham they saw several
Pitts, and some one showed them the
Lines at Chatham, which they saw very
distinctly, with the clothes drying on

doubled up like boot-jacks, before they | statutes at large in marvel; here we can be put away at all. A gentleman saw Mr. Backhouse and Harry Edney, in a hairy cap, without his coat, laid whoever they might be, and a beautiful mé perpendicularly on a mattrass, with grupe of Cupid and Physic, together a basin by my side, and said that was with several of the busks which Lavvy my birth. I thought it would have has copied, the original of which is in been my death, for I never was so in-the Vacuum at Rome, which was fordisposed in all my life. There was no merly an office for government thunsymphony to be found amongst the tars der, but is now reduced to a stable, (so called from their smell), for just where the pope keeps his bulls." They before we went off I heard them throw afterwards visited the great church of a painter overboard, and directly after Naughty Dam, where they staid mass, they called out to one another to hoist so called from the crowd of people who up an ensign. I was too ill to inquire attend it, and the priest was very much what the poor young gentleman had incensed; they heard the Tedium sung, done." which occupied three hours. They next Mrs. R. reported this incident just saw a beautiful statue of Henry Carter, before reaching Calais: "I was very and Mrs. R. fancied she saw in him a much distressed to see that a fat gentle-likeness to the Carters of Portsmouth. man who was in the ship, had fallen When the theatre was discussed, she into a fit of perplexity by over-reaching himself, and if it had not been that we had a doctor in the ship, who immediately opened his temporary artery and his jocular vein with a lancelot which he had in his pocket, I think we should have seen his end. It was altogether a most moving spectacle: he thought himself dying, and all his anxiety in the midst of his distress was to be able to add a crocodile to his will, in favor of his niece, about whom he appeared very sanguinary." She deemed it right to warn travellers against the fish at Calais hotels, for she overheard one of the waiters call it poison. The French were still so fond of Bonaparte that they called the table-cloths Naps, in compliment to him. After dinner she was asked to have a chasse, but she was afraid of a hunting-party late at night; then she found that chasse was a lickure called cure a sore (from its healing qualities), and very nice it was. At Paris the travellers put up at the Hotel Wag Ram, in the Rue de la Pay, so called from its being the dearest part of the town. "At the end of it is the place Fumdum, where there is a pillow as high as the Trojan's Pillow at Rome, or the pompous pillow in Egypt."

The old lady thus continues: "We lost no time in going into the gardens of the Tooleries, where we saw the

was surprised to hear a great deal about Racing and Cornhill. They went to the Jem Narse, where, after one of the singers had done, "although everybody laughed, the whole house called out beast, beast, and the man, notwithstanding, was foolish enough to sing the song all over again." One of the old lady's daughters unfortunately caught a cold and guittar through visiting the Hecatombs; a second daughter sprained her tender hercules; while a third caught a military fever, which it was hoped would be cured by putting her through a regiment, and giving her a few subterfuges. At the symetery of the chaise and pair Mrs. R. amused herself by copying the epigrams on the tombstones. One of the latter, which looked like a large bath, was described to her as a sark of a goose. At the Shamp de Mars she saw a review of the Queerasses of the Royal Guard by a sister of the late Dolphin - the Dolphin of France is the same as the Prince of Whales in England. The Duke of Anglehame came by, who was quite a Ramrod in the chase. Mrs. R.'s travelling friend Mr. Fulmer bought two pictures in Paris one of Ten Years, the other of Old Beans.

The Ramsbottoms afterwards visited Rome, "or the infernal city, as it is called." They went to the church of Salt Peter, and they saw a great statute

of Salt Peter himself, though Mr. Ful- the dinners of the House of Commons, mer thought it to be Jew Peter. The for I see they very often carry up their visitors also went to the church of St. bills to them." John the Latter end. At the Veteran All the letters are full of similar (which Mrs. R. foolishly called Vac- whimsical ideas and happy turns of uum until she went there) they found thought. In his reviews of books many beautiful statutes, including one in John Bull Hook wielded a more of the body of the angel Michael, deadly pen, and many an author "which has been ripped to pieces, dreaded his satirical onslaughts. He and is therefore said to be Tore-gave Tommy Moore especially a severe so.' "" Raffles's "Transmigration" they roasting for his "Loves of the Authought to be finer than his Harpoons. gels." But one cannot help thinking There were several beautiful works by of the miserable man himself, who, Hannah Bell Scratchy, and a fine notwithstanding all his brilliant wit Dilapidation of St. John by George and satire, was one of the most Honey. There was splendid cemetery wretched of beings. When in his last observable in the Venus of Medicine. struggles with death, he had little that The party exploded the Arch of Tights he could look back upon with satisfacand the Baths of Diapason, but Miss tion and composure. His half century Lavvy had the misfortune to fall of life had been largely misspent, and down on the Tarpaulin Rock in one while admiring his natural gifts and of her revelries. When they returned genius, posterity can but commiserate to England, Mrs. R. hoped to go to the man, passing as lightly as may be a little property in Gloucestershire, over his foibles and follies. but as she found that her late husband's creditors had got a lion on the estate, she would not expose herself to the mercy of a wild creature like that. She had a French son-in-law who was so clever that Mr. Fulmer said he put him in mind of Confusion, the old China philosopher, who was a mandolin a few years ago. Mrs. R. took a house in Southampton Street, London, which formerly belonged to Garrick, who wrote "The School for Scandal" and all Shakespeare's plays, and who frequently had to dine with him Mr. Johuston, of Covent Garden, and an old Goldsmith, of the name of Oliver. Through her son-in-law she became acquainted with the Admirable | Atlantic journey. Sir Sidney Smith, who made such a disturbance in Long Acre many years ago. She was surprised to hear from another son-in-law, who was a member of Parliament, that there was a dining-room at the House of Commons. "Fulmer says you may see many a A little apart from where the many man who has a stake in the country mourned or joyed, a man and a woman taking his chop there. The place has stood close together by the vessel's also been famous for its beef-steaks side, the man half kneeling on a ever since the Rump Parliament. I seat, the woman standing straight and believe the House of Lords pays for motionless by his side. Enough like

From Blackwood's Magazine. FELICITY BROOKE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MISS MOLLY."

PART I.

Courage and Passion are the Immortal facts of Life. Where they pass, the world marks the spot.

To an outsider the confusion might have seemed purposeless, but, in truth, all this noise and running hither and thither, and clanging of bells, and shouting of sailors, meant that the last moments were being counted out, before the City of Prague started on her

The deck was crowded in the usual way with those assembled to speed the parting, those who had many playful words at command, and those to whom it was sad earnest, and no word of any sort was possible.

ness to pronounce them brother and | but he laid his hand over the one that sister; the same straight features and rested on his arm, and side by side blonde hair, the same slenderness of they paced slowly up and down the figure and grace of movement. deck.

Good-byes are said in so many ways. Hilda Forsythe's grey eyes were full of tears, though not one fell; her voice when she spoke- and words grew fewer with each passing moment trembled a little, but each syllable reached her listener's ear, -the touch of the hand on hers told her what the separation cost her companion. Perhaps behind the silence there was as bitter a heartache as that which found expression in those loud sobs, at the sound of which she looked round startled.

A dowdy, fair-haired, elderly German weeping loudly and unrestrainedly, her reddened eyelids and wet cheeks forming a most unpicturesque exhibition of woe. But utterly heedless of spectators, regardless of the angry words and pushes of those who would have thrust her aside, her bonnet crooked, her ungloved hands in her companion's, she stood there pouring out last words and thoughts.

With the instinct of avoiding such an

"Ah, hush, Aymer," his sister interposed gently, "do not be bitter. Vanity, ambition, may govern one woman, but do not allow yourself to exhibition of trouble, Mrs. Forsythe imagine it is the rule for all."

"Not while you live, Hilda,"

-he

hers.

"Yes," he said absently, she

turned back, and as she did so, “Oh, Aymer," she exclaimed, roused from spoke more gravely, and he took her her own thoughts, "what a beautiful hands in his as he spoke ; "but re-girl ! " member, it is not the vanity or ambi- His eyes followed the direction of tion which I judge so severely let her try what they will do to help her!but the cowardice," there was a sudden flash in the grey eyes, "which kept me dangling on through a long delusive engagement to end in this. There," standing upright, "that is the last word, and I did not intend it should have been spoken; what is the good! I am going to America to shoot big game, and generally amuse myself; Wyndham will meet me in New York, and from there I will write to you, and give you a fresh address. Write often, won't you?"

"Of course. And you? You will not let long silences give me time to grow anxious?" He did not reply,

A

is handsome, she is with that Niobe
over yonder! They have come, or
rather she has come, to say good-bye to
that German lover, or brother."
"Brother, I think," Hilda said gen-
tly; "they are very much alike." But
while she spoke, her eyes still followed
the now vanishing figure of the girl
who had attracted her attention.
girl of perhaps fifteen, in a sailor-like
dress of blue serge, the shirt open a
little at the throat, a cloth cap on her
thick curls. Her dark eyes were set
under slightly arched brows, a brilliant
color was in her cheeks, her young
curved mouth was scarlet as a pome-
granate bud. A minute later she had

disappeared from sight; her move- | sible, the gangway plank was crowded
ments were as young and strong and with a stream of people making their
vigorous as the color on her cheeks and way on shore.
the light in her eyes.

A great bell was clanging loudly and Long after it was impossible to see fiercely, an insistent whistle was ren- her, he knew the expression in her dering speech and hearing alike impos-tender grey eyes.